The beautiful thing about today’s tracking and reporting technologies — such as web analytics, call tracking and CRMs — is that marketers can use them to test which campaign aspects are better at converting audiences into leads. One way this is done is through A/B testing.
A/B testing enables you to evaluate how well a control version (“A”) compares in performance to a test version (“B”), which may have a different message, call to action, web page layout, color scheme and/or imagery. This type of testing is often used in ads, direct-mail pieces, email marketing and landing pages.
To accurately track performance, you’ll need to capture and record online and offline conversions for both the control and test versions. This can be done with web analytics for online conversions, and call tracking for offline conversions.
Following are the ways you can integrate call tracking into your A/B tests:
Integrate Call Tracking with A/B Testing
For those A/B tests that take place off your website — such as TV ads, direct mail, email newsletters, etc. — associate and integrate a unique call tracking number into the control version and another into the test version. As calls come into these numbers, the call tracking solution will record the conversions and associate them with each test version.
For website and landing page A/B testing, you can install a Javascript snippet provided by your call tracking vendor into the code of your web pages. When a visitor arrives to your site, the web page test version they landed on will be logged and he or she will be shown a unique tracking number via the Javascript. As a call comes into this number, a conversion will be recorded and associated with the corresponding control or test version of the web page.
Note: It is possible to manually add a unique tracking number to each A/B test page, but if a visitor leaves this page and goes to another on your site, the ability to associate offline conversions with an A/B test version will be lost. By installing the Javascript throughout your site, the tracking number follows them from page to page.
Once you have integrated the call tracking numbers, launch both the “A” and “B” test versions simultaneously and allow them to run until a statistically significant data set is collected.
Monitor and Analyze Your A/B Tests
To determine which version performs better, combine both online and offline conversions of each version to form a complete lead-conversion picture.
If your control “A” converted more, that’s the version with which to move forward. Likewise, if test “B” converted more, make this your updated standard. For an additional layer of data, integrate conversion data into a CRM to associate A/B test versions with sales.
Armed with this information, you can confidently make updates to your campaign based on conversion rate, lead quality and ROI.
For more information about A/B testing, visit the ion interactive blog.
Tags: a/b testing, Call Tracking, offline conversions, phone call tracking
